


let nothing you dismay

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma is not a fan of forced merriment, but she'll give it a try this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let nothing you dismay

Emma’s never been one for Christmas; it’s a travesty to say that around someone like her mother, who celebrates half-birthdays and never forgets an occasion, but she’s just not about Christmas, like, at all. Christmas is nothing but a reminder of all the people who don’t care about her, who left her, alone and bitter, to build those walls higher and higher.

It changed when she moved to Storybrooke, shifted a bit more when she spent that year in New York with Henry, and now…

Okay, she’s still not the biggest fan of forced merriment, but she’ll do it for Henry’s sake.

“Did you celebrate anything like this back in the Enchanted Forest?” Emma asks Killian as they dig through the decorations that Henry brought from Regina’s (“don’t worry, my mom _loves_ decorating – we have a ton of decorations!”) noting the overly austere color scheme of _red-white-silver_ everything.

Killian picks up a clear plastic container full of ornaments in Regina’s signature colors, sets it back down. “We had Yule – celebrated on the longest night of the year.”

“What did you do?” Emma asks, reaching around him for the string of lights before crawling across the floor to plug them in (cool white, she can work with this).

“Usually I found the nearest tavern and the nearest willing wench,” he tells her, raising his eyebrow when she looks up at him, and oddly she doesn’t feel anything at his words other than an appreciation for his honesty ( _she is the only one he has traded his ship for, she is the only one who he has been to hell and back with_ \- )

Killian’s eyes rake down the front of her cream-colored sweater. “You don’t happen to be hiding any wench-ly attire under those clothes, do you Swan? I can show you my favorite tradition…” he trails off, licking his lips and winking at her, and she throws an oversized ornament ball at him in response. It bounces and rolls off behind him, but his eyes remain on her and she flips her hair over her shoulder, turns back to what she’s doing.

“Maybe later,” she promises, thinking about this morning, the feel of him against her tongue, the way that he threaded his fingers in her hair and choked out her name, and her words remain a promise. “Henry will be back soon with more decorations.”

Killian grumbles something under his breath that sounds like “rubbish” but she ignores it, gathering up the strings of lights and testing them.

If she’s going to do Christmas this year, she’ll at least try to do it right.

 

…

 

“Hot chocolate with candy canes,” Henry tells her one morning in between bites of Cheerios. “Essential.”

“Not a problem” Emma tells him, taking a sip of her coffee. They’re never without hot chocolate here, and she can pick up candy canes on the way home from the station.

Henry babbles on about the holiday baking extravaganza that Regina is going to be holding that afternoon, and which she knows her mother will be attending, and even though Henry keeps reminding her that she can come, she keeps telling him she’ll sit this one out. Regina and her mother were family way before Emma entered the picture, and it’s been nice to see them take those tentative steps towards each other again, to try to fix that relationship.   She doesn’t want to intrude on that (and she knows it’s not intruding but she’ll just eat the cookies later).

She hears Killian’s footsteps on the stairs and then he is sauntering into the kitchen, ruffling Henry’s hair as he rounds the table and heads straight for the coffee (“a luxury, Swan, you have no idea how hard this was to come by in the Enchanted Forest – “). She takes a moment to appreciate the way that the new pajama bottoms they bought hang low around his hips, and the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing with no brace, no hook (it’s so weird to think of Captain Freaking Hook, in her kitchen, wearing modern clothes and sleeping in her bed and _yeah_ ).

Killian likes to sleep in the nude which is hot, but it’s also _hot,_ and after waking up way too many times to way too many blankets piled up on their bed, pajamas were essential. But Emma likes it – the leather jacket feels like armor in a way that the pajamas don’t, and it’s just nice to think of him as feeling like he can let his guard down around her (and she with him, but they’ve been through too much - )

 

Killian sits in the chair beside her, leans his knee against hers and she turns her head, drops his hand to rest it on his knee. “Morning,” she says with a smile, and the smile he gives her in return makes her forget what Henry is saying until he repeats it.

“What?”

“I asked what you both wanted for Christmas,” Henry says, and Emma jolts. She’s been so focused on all the decorations that she hasn’t thought about gifts – or, at least, not for herself. She’s come up with a half-dozen options for Henry she’s already run by Regina to make sure there are no duplicates, which is a good thing because Regina had already bought Apples to Apples but she hasn’t thought about anything she wanted, or anything Killian might want, and –

“We’ll think on it,” he tells Henry, who seems to take that as a perfectly appropriate answer. He drinks the milk out of his cereal bowl and puts in in the dishwasher without being reminded (Regina trained him well).

When the door slams shut behind him (okay, well, he’s still a teenage boy) Killian clears his throat. 

“Any particular thing you’d like for Christmas?” he asks, nose nuzzling into her neck, and she can’t help but laugh, because this is what she wants – this, a family, a home. Something and someone to come home to – a place that she misses when she’s not here. He presses his lips against her neck, and she moves her hand up to his hair, keeps his mouth where it is.

“Oh I don’t know,” she teases, “but I think you’ve got the right idea…”

(They make it upstairs, but barely.)

…

“So, Swan, what do you want for Christmas?” he asks her that night as they settle into bed.

“I don’t know,” she admits, putting down her phone down on top of the covers. “I don’t think there’s anything that I need.”

Killian is standing by the window, taking off his hook and leaving it on the dresser, and Emma thinks for a moment about how easily they’ve fallen into this domesticity (now that she’s here, she’s not sure why she was ever so scared because, like everything else about them, this is _easy_ ). He looks over at her with a raised eyebrow.

“You know, it’s possible for you to ask for something you want, Swan, not something you need.”

His words are soft and she can hear the sincerity behind them but there’s nothing that she wants, not really, nothing that she can ask for that she doesn’t already have.

“What about you?” she asks as he slides under the thick down comforter, his cold feet brushing against hers as he settles in, book in lap (she is only a little surprised that Killian is a bookworm, that he’s going to read every book in the library at this rate).

“What I want is for you to not hog all the covers,” he teases, and she wants to smack him with her pillow but she’s tired and this is nice, the way that things are, and she doesn’t want to move. So she pushes some of the large comforter towards him before turning back to looking at Facebook on her phone. 

But what she ends up doing until they turn out the lights is scrolling aimlessly through video recipes is wondering what Killian actually wants, not what he needs.

 

…

 

In the end, Emma crashes the cookie baking extravaganza, but she does it because she needs advice. She’s spent the last three days obsessing over every possible thing she could buy Killian and none of them are good and all of them are stupid.  

“So what exactly does one buy a reformed pirate for Christmas?” she asks, trying to sound nonchalant but totally failing (it would help if she didn’t just fumble with the ice cream scoop she’s using to place cookies on the baking sheet).

Regina looks up from the stovetop, where she is carefully melting chocolate for peppermint bark, and Emma notices the look that she gives Mary Margaret, who is mixing frosting for the sugar cookies that are cooling nearby.

“Well…” her mother says, “has he mentioned anything he wants?”

Emma refrains from rolling her eyes in response, because she’s been doing a lot of asking and she keeps getting the same answer. “No.” She pauses, places the ice cream scoop in the bowl with the rest of the batter. “He’s like me – he’s not someone who asks for things. 

“You still asked for new boots,” Mary Margaret points out, and Emma sighs because her mother is right – when her parents asked, she had an answer at the ready.

“It’s easier to ask for stuff from you guys than from Killian.” She doesn’t know why this is, but it just is (maybe it’s family?). “And I don’t want to get him a watch, or something like that. I’m not really sure. All of my ideas are bad. "

“Well what about something for your house? I mean, there has to be something he’d like,” her mother suggests, and from the stove Regina scoffs.

“Please – like an appliance is the way to go,” Regina remarks, ignoring the mumbled **_I’d_** _like a new dishwasher_ response from Mary Margaret. “Look, maybe he doesn’t want material goods." 

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you give him other things instead – time, experiences, something like that. This realm is easily three times the size of the Enchanted Forest – I’m sure you can think of something." 

“Is that what you’re doing?” Emma asks, and Regina nods.

“Roland want to go to Disney World,” she says. “We’ve promised to take him when the baby gets a bit older. Blue has even said she’d send one of the other fairies with us to watch her.”

Emma picks up the scoop, the words rushing out of her mouth before she can stop them but she has to keep her hands busy right now, has to stop the flight response from kicking in. “I don’t do plans.”

“You said you weren’t a mother either,” Mary Margaret points out softly. “You said you weren’t going to stay, too.”

 _Things change_ lingers in the air, unsaid and applicable to all three of them, as the timer goes off and Regina removes another tray of sugar cookies from the oven and replaces it with the first batch of chocolate chip. The only words that are spoken are words of gentle admonishment as Henry and Roland race in from the backyard, slamming the door behind them and tracking snow across the floor. All is soon forgiven, and cookies are decorated and peppermint bark placed in the fridge to harden with promises that it will be delivered in the coming days.

Emma kisses Henry good night – he’s staying at Regina’s which normally she doesn’t find to be bothersome but it weighs on her now because she’s going to have to walk to Granny’s alone and her mind. won’t. shut. up.

Emma doesn’t do permanent, and she doesn’t do plans (not since Neal, not since Henry, not since jail) but her mother’s words have worked their way into her bones and she can’t stop the urge to run, the hair on the back of her neck –

It’s not raising, though, she realizes slowly. She may grit her teeth at the thought of something permanent but she’s living it each day, with every morning that she wakes up with Killian sleeping beside her and every time she puts Henry’s laundry back in his room. She’s got the future she’s always run from, the one that can disappoint and dismay and yet she’s got it, right now, and she’s also got no intentions to let it go.

The walk to Granny’s is short, and she stops outside, unsure of what she’s going to do. The ideas rush through her head as she takes the stairs, finding Killian and Robin in a booth, chatting and drinking beers.

“All finished?” Robin asks when he stops her, and she nods, taking off her gloves and sliding in beside Killian. She grabs his mug, takes a sip because she doesn’t want to speak, doesn’t want him to know that something is off.

Robin gets up then, says his goodbyes and throws a few bills on the table while Killian slips his arm around her shoulders.

“How was baking, Swan?” he asks, and she shrugs.

“Interesting,” is all that she can say, because the thought of him right here, right now is overwhelming and she doesn’t want to run, just wants to sink into his embrace, wants to feel this comfortable forever. 

Killian _hmmms_ softly as Emma reaches forward for another sip of his beer, but he says nothing, so Emma talks to fill the space, telling him about peppermint bark and cookies and the gingerbread houses that Roland and Henry are going to make this weekend, and as she talks she realizes Regina’s right: now that they are ready for this future together, she might as well try to make it a good one.

…

 

Only thing is, though, Emma’s not sure where to start (how do you try to stand still when you’ve spent so much time running?).

 

…

 

“Any further thoughts on what you want for Christmas?” Killian asks, his lips against her neck as his hand rests on her stomach, thumb tracing patterns against her far-too-sensitive skin.

Emma whimpers when he moves his lips upwards to below her ear (he knows her weaknesses, the bastard) and twists her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Other than knowing you better not stop?” she asks, arching up her hips as his hand slides lower. 

“Or what?” he asks, moving his mouth back around to nip at the underside of her chin, to leave hot kisses against her throat.

“Don’t make me threaten you, Jones,” she growls out as he runs his fingers against the waistband of her panties, teasing her, and he laughs – a deep belly laugh, and she opens her eyes (when did she squeeze them shut?) to find him looking at her, smile wide across his face, eyes hooded yet bright.

“You’re so terrifying, Swan,” he teases, leaning forward to kiss her softly, “so utterly terrifying,” he breathes against her lips, and she can’t help but throw her arms around his neck, pull him into a kiss as she laughs too.

She likes this – she likes them. She likes how they are when they’re like this – how happy she feels, a giddy giggly happiness that seems to consume her and buoy her upwards at the same time. It’s fascinating, because she’s never felt this way before and to be liked this with him and to see him like this with her .

“I don’t make idle threats,” she says breathily, but by now they know that she’s just deflecting and it doesn’t matter because his hand is starting to move to wear she wants it most, and there is no more discussion of gift-giving for the time being (but there _is_ giving, and that’s fine with her too).

…

 

When she and Henry lived in New York, they spent most of their weekends doing something. It didn’t matter what, just that they did it. 

When she lived in Tallahassee she spent her weekends driving to all the ends of the state, basking in the warmth of the Florida sun and exploring everything from the Keys to the Panhandle. She never stayed still, just kept moving.

Doesn’t mean it’s not possible to do both.

She pulls up a map and starts to plot out places they can go throughout the year that will still keep them close to Storybrooke. She buys Groupons to distilleries and artisan cheese tastings which sound ridiculous at first but the more she thinks about them the more she thinks that maybe this is the way to go – to do things together like an ordinary couple would do. To live the life they have inside this town outside of it, just the two of them.

Plus, cheese.

She doesn’t print them out, but instead gets him a new phone, installs the app and writes careful directions on how to use the phone, how to use the map, how to access the information for when she’s driving and they’re traveling (she buys some maps at the gas station just in case – she’s sure Killian will appreciate that).

She wraps it all in a small box and shoves it deep under the tree, nervous and jittery because this isn’t just a step, it’s a leap in a lot of ways and she’s uncertain if this is the right move or not. She’s not the best gift-giver, after all.

(She buys him a couple of books that Belle says he hasn’t read just to be safe.)

 

…

Christmas Eve is spent with everyone at her parent’s loft.   There is dinner and drinks and the promised peppermint bark, and everyone seems to have a good time, even the babies. Gifts are exchanged (her parents buy her boots like she wanted, and Killian and the other men get handmade scarves from her mother). As she helps wash the dishes in the kitchen, she watches her father and Killian take out the trash, and there’s just this moment of peace which settles over her shoulders and sinks into her skin and it’s unlike anything that Emma’s felt before – like deep exhale over her entire body, and she realizes that this is home.

Henry will be at Regina’s tonight: there are some long-established traditions he refuses to give up, but he promises that he will be there bright and early to open presents and eat breakfast with her and Killian. She’s not jealous at all, but there’s a part of her that wishes she had traditions at the holidays growing up, and she’s grateful that Regina and Henry have that.

As they walk home, Killian takes her hand.

“Would you like to exchange gifts when we return?” he asks her, and Emma wrinkles her nose.

“I thought we were waiting for Henry?” she asks, and Killian smirks.

“Gifts to each other,” he corrects. “We can exchange gifts with him in the morning.”

There’s a nervous energy to Killian that makes her think he wants her to open whatever he bought her, and so Emma nods, squeezes his hand. “Sure. Let’s do that when we get home.”

Emma has barely hung her coat up when she realizes Killian is already kneeling in front of the tree, rooting around at the base of it for a package that she had noticed (but pretended she hadn’t) a few days ago – a large box tied carefully with a large bow, in shades of green and red.

Emma sits down across from him, reaching to grab her own smaller gift from where she hit it beneath presents for Henry. Nervousness flares up within her as her fingers touch the box, but she pushes it aside and holds it out to him.

They exchange boxes silently, each clearly watching as the other hesitates before opening their present, until Emma just decides to give hers a shake – it is heavy, and it sounds bulky inside – and, glancing up at Killian (who looks very expectant), sets it in her lap.

She opens the package carefully, confused about the weight and the sounds within, surprised to find that it’s a picture frame – several, in fact, with pictures of them taken at some of the holiday parties they’ve attended. In every picture she’s with her family or with him, arms around Henry or perched in Killian’s lap, and there’s something about the pictures that makes her heart ache, because she’s not sentimental but she is where her family is concerned and –

“Belle was taking photographs,” Killian points out, and when she looks up, she can feel her lip quiver because he thought about this, thought what she would want and knew she would want her family, knew she would want to keep this.

“Open yours,” she tells him, her voice barely above a whispers, and Killian opens the wrapped box slowly, takes out the phone and the exhausting list of instructions she’s written.

“You wish to travel.” She can’t immediately read what’s written across his face and she worries if this was a bad idea –

“With you,” she says. “I want to go places with you.”

Killian looks at the phone and then at Emma again, and before she knows it, he’s kissing her, hand in her hair and lips a steady pressure against hers and oh, he liked his gift, he knows she liked his gift as much as she liked hers.

When she breaks the kiss, she cups his face in her hands and leans her forehead against his. “Merry Christmas,” she says softly, her heart hammering in her chest and her head spinning. “Thank you for the gift.”

“Aye,” he responds, “merry Christmas to you as well, love." 

They spend the night planning what they will do and where they will go, plotting out a course over the next several months on the paper maps that she has given him (good call Emma), and as she looks over and watches Killian determine their route, she finally gets all that bullshit about the meaning of Christmas.


End file.
